As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist
Helena Cobban participated in an academic conference at an upscale resort near
Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in the Middle East. When she
attended what was listed as the “Gala Dinner with keynote speech”, she quickly
learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, “Adopt a Muj.”
“I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican
women from the Phoenix suburbs and being asked, ‘Have you adopted a muj?”
Cobban told me. “Each one had pledged money to sponsor a member of the Afghan
mujahedin in the name of beating the communists. Some were even seated at the
event next to their personal ‘muj.’”
The keynote speaker of the evening, according to Cobban,
was a hard-charging freshman member of Congress named John McCain.
During the Vietnam war, McCain had been captured by the
North Vietnamese Army after being shot down on his way to bomb a civilian
lightbulb factory. He spent two years in solitary confinement and underwent
torture that left him with crippling injuries. McCain returned from the war
with a deep, abiding loathing of his former captors, remarking as late as 2000,
“I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” After he was criticized
for the racist remark, McCain refused
to apologize. “I was referring to my prison guards,” he said, “and I will
continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of
the beating and torture of my friends.”
‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison where
McCain was tortured. (Wikimedia Commons)
In October 1, 1965 six
Indonesian generals were murdered by a group of junior officers who claimed
that those generals were supporters of CIA who had planned to oust the first
president of the country, Sukarno, and their action was to prevent it. General
Suharto: “a man who had served both the
Dutch colonialists and the Japanese invaders- and his colleagues charged that
the large and influential PKI [Communist Party] was behind the junior officers’
‘coup attempt’, and that behind the party stood Communist China, (P.193).”
This so-called coup was an excuse for Suharto to encourage people, in
particular Moslems, to initiate a Communist killing macabre: “The Indonesian people were stirred up in part by the display of
photographs on television and in the press of the badly decomposed bodies of
the slain generals. The men, the public was told, had been castrated and their
eyes gouged out by Communist women. (The army later made the mistake of
allowing official medical autopsies to be included as evidence in some of the
trials; and the extremely detailed reports of the injuries suffered mentioned
only bullet wounds and some bruises, no eye gougings or castration.),(P.
193,194).” Murdered Indonesians during those years are reported to be
between half to one million. There are accounts of Muslim men banding known
Communists together and mass killing them: “Twenty-five
years later, American diplomats disclosed that they had systematically compiled
comprehensive lists of ‘Communist’ operatives, from top echelons down to
village cadres, and turned over as many as 5,000 names to the Indonesian army,
which hunted those persons down and killed them…Robert Martens, a former member
of the US Embassy’s political section in Jakarta, stated in 1990: ‘It really
was a big help to the army. They probably killed a lot of people, and I
probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that’s not all bad. There’s a
time when you have to strike hard at a decisive moment.’, (P. 194).”
After WWII, many
Europeans realized that the war that devastated Europe entirely, was nothing
but a capitalist ambitions in expanding markets. This knowledge frustrated
people to the point of checking socialist doctrines, especially considering the
heroism witnessed by communist organizations in many countries involved in the
useless war. The Predecessor of CIA fearing expansion of socialism in Europe became
very active in every Western European country. Many of the fascists, or fascist
sympathizers became agents of CIA: “Then
there was the case of Cardinal Battista Montini, another beneficiary of CIA
largesse. The payments made to him reveal something of the Agency’s mechanistic
thinking about why people become radicals. It seems that the good Cardinal was
promoting orphanages in Italy during the 1950s and 1960s and, says Victor
Marchetti, ‘The thinking was that if such institutions were adequately
supported, many young people would be able to live well there and so would not
one day fall into Communist hands.’ The Cardinal, as a Monsignor, had been
involved with the Vatican’s operation to smuggle Nazis to freedom after World
War II. He had a long history of association with Western governments and their
intelligence agencies. In 1963, he became Pope Paul VI, (P. 121).”
World War II sealed British Empire as a declining imperialist
forever, and opened the door for the United States to rise as the new
superpower in the world. In July of 1944, in Bretton Wood in New Hampshire, 44
allied nations got together and established IMF and what is now called World
Bank, under the power of the United States, which guaranteed a predicted American
Century. The rise was emanating from the pillars of capitalism, and no regime
in the world could expand capitalism to such high stages as it has been the
case with the US. Of course, this had been prophesied by some, that such great
capitalistic prominence could be achieved through force and domination of other
nations. Internally, as it was prophesied again, each industry became a
monopoly, or conglomerate of several companies in a monopolistic nature, and
enormous capitals were amassed in the hands of a few, while the rest of the
country continued gradual losing of resources. Overt policing with uniforms,
and covert controlling, FBI, keeps people inline to protect riches of
capitalists, while military and CIA
conduct the same duties beyond the borders. Anyone who could become a role
model, a leader, a national hero, or someone who puts societal benefits before
personal advantages, such as Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, were uprooted,
even if they were in the highest positions such as Kennedy brothers. In other
countries, military and CIA
covertly, if possible, and without regards to human dignity and even life, mow
down any nationalistic or socialistic uprising, and replace it with corrupt and
sadistic money hungry dictators. This has been the history of the world in the
past seventy years.
این سخنرانی یک و نیم
ساعته دکتر مرتضی محیط در مورد بحران اخیر ایران و آینده و سرنوشت ایران را باید ملاحظه
کرد. آیا به ایران حمله نظامی خواهد شد؟ آیا در ایران جنبش خود جوشی به وجود میاید؟
آیا سرنوشت ایران مانند لیبی و افغانستان و عراق و سوریه خواهد بود؟ دلیل بالا رفتن
دلار چیست؟ دکتر مرتضی محیط در این برنامه به تمام این پرسشها پاسخ میدهد. دیدن این برنامه
برای همه ایرانیان ضروری است.
The other day I noticed, with something of a shock, that Brett
Kavanaugh, the supreme court nominee, is almost exactly the same
age as me. I have always scoffed at those of my generation who cynically
hitched their star to the conservative movement but now, as I take my leave
from this space, it occurs to me that maybe they played the game right after all.
The Great Revolt review: Trump-approved study of 2016 is key reading
for Democrats
I started out in
journalism in the orange-fingered sunset of the Reagan era. The rise of the
right, I felt back then, was the most consequential development of my lifetime,
and understanding it was where I came to focus my energies.
What came to
fascinate me was the paradox of the thing. Republicans had
successfully inverted their historical brand-image as the party of the
highborn, remaking themselves as plain-talking pals of the forgotten people who
had so spurned them during the Great Depression. Republicanism’s payload,
however, was the same as it had been in 1932. And just look at what
conservatism proceeded to do to those average people once they welcomed it into
their lives.
But understanding
the perversity of rightwing populism only brought me to another mystery: the
continuing failure of liberals to defeat this thing, even as its freakishness
and destructiveness became apparent to everyone. My brain twirls to think that
rightwing populism is still running strong in 2018 – that it’s even worse now
than it was in 1988 – that the invective and the journalism and the TV shows
and all the mournful books about the decline of the middle class have amounted,
basically, to nothing.
Democrats simply have to take one of the houses of Congress this
fall and commence holding Trump accountable
We had the perfect
opportunity to reverse course in 2008, after a deregulatory catastrophe sent
the billionaires shrieking for handouts and ruined middle America as collateral
damage. That was the perfect moment for liberals to reclaim their Rooseveltian
heritage by governing forcefully on behalf of ordinary people, by warring
against over-powerful corporations, by demonstrating the power of the state to
build a just and humane society. But they didn’t do it.
The biggest Trump resignations and firings so far
I know the excuses:
those Republicans were so clever, they wouldn’t vote for Obama’s proposals,
etc. But from the long-term perspective, what really mattered was the absence
of Democratic will. Instead of doing what the moment required, Democrats chose
to help the banks get back on their feet and to stand by as inequality soared;
they scolded their base for wanting too much and they extended their hand
instead to Silicon Valley and big pharma. The task of capturing public anger
was one they regarded with distaste; they left that to Tea Party demagogues and
to Donald Trump.
We are going to pay
for that failure for a long time. The GOP should have been ruined by the
financial crisis; instead the culture wars are raging all over again, with dog whistles
and fights over the flag and the persecution mania of the populist right
blaring from the TV screen. We’re right back where we started. The crisis went
completely to waste.
For all their
cunning, Republicans are a known quantity. Their motives are simple: they will
do anything, say anything, profess faith in anything to get tax cuts,
deregulation and a little help keeping workers in line. Nothing else is sacred
to them. Rules, norms, traditions, deficits, the Bible, the constitution,
whatever. They don’t care, and in this they have proven utterly predictable.
Wisconsin, of all places, is a battleground state. In the hands of
a real politician, Trumpism could romp even farther
The Democrats,
however, remain a mystery. We watch them hesitate at crucial moments, betray
the movements that support them, and even try to suppress the leaders and ideas
that generate any kind of populist electricity. Not only do they seem
uninterested in doing their duty toward the middle class, but sometimes we
suspect they don’t even want to win.
(This is more than
just a suspicion, by the way. As none other than Tony Blair has said,
“I wouldn’t want to win on an old-fashioned leftist platform. Even if I thought
it was the route to victory, I wouldn’t take it.”)
Still, as we are
reminded at every turn, this flawed organization is the only weapon we have
against the party of Trump. And as the president’s blunders take a turn for the
monumental and public alarm grows, the imperative of delivering a Democratic
wave this fall grows ever more urgent.
Make no mistake: it
has got to happen. Democrats simply have
to take one of the houses of Congress this fall and commence holding Trump
accountable. Failure at this baseline mission is unthinkable; it will mean the
Democratic party has no reason for being, even on its own compromised terms.
As a conservative, I despair at Republicans' support for Trump.
His vision is not conservatism
Charles J Sykes
What concerns me as
I begin my leave, though, is the larger picture. Trump may be an oaf, but the
vicious strain of rightwing populism he introduced is not going away. Trumpism
is the future for the Republican party – it delivered Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Michigan and Iowa too. Wisconsin, of all places, is now a battleground state.
In the hands of a real politician, Trumpism has the potential to romp even
farther.
Beating the right
cannot simply be a matter of waiting for a dolt in the Oval Office to screw
things up. There has to be a plan for actively challenging and reversing it,
for turning around the fraction of working class voters who have been
abandoning the Democratic party for decades. The time is up for happy fantasies
of office-park centrism and professional-class competence.
As for me, I am off
to write a few books. I’ll be back in this space in a few years and we will see
how things have gone.
Thomas Frank is an
American political analyst and historian. His books include What’s the Matter
With Kansas?. His latest is Listen, Liberal: or, What Ever Happened to the
Party of the People?
Since you’re here…
… we have a small
favour to ask. More people are reading The Guardian than ever but advertising
revenues across the media are falling fast. Our independent, investigative
journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it
because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your
perspective, too.
Unlike many news
organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want our journalism to remain
free and open to everyone. Democracy depends on reliable access to information.
By making our journalism publicly available, we're able to hold governments,
companies and institutions to account, and offer our diverse, global readership
a platform for debate and commentary. This encourages us all to challenge our
opinions on what’s happening in our world. By supporting The Guardian – and
just giving what you can afford – you can help us ensure that everyone has
access to critical information for years to come.
Friday, July 20th, 2018
#Unity4J to hold Emergency Public Meeting; Unveil Non-
Violent Digital Action Plan
International media are reporting that WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief
may imminently be handed by Ecuador to UK authorities. (Ref:
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/07/breaking-possible-handover-
of-julian-assange-to-the-uk-may-be-imminent/)
If such an event occurs, it presents an immediate threat to Assange’s human rights, asylum
rights, liberty and to press freedoms. It would also be in direct contravention to the rulings
of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Inter-American Court of human
rights, both of which have found in his favour.
The #Unity4J movement in support of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is holding an
emergency public meeting to unveil a plan for mass non-violent action to demand freedom
for the journalist and publisher. High profile supporters of Julian Assange will be in
attendance and unveil the new strategy.
The vigil will be held in a roundtable format with many guests from previous vigils, and a
few new faces as well, who will discuss the current state of Assange's asylum and the
future of the #Unity4J movement. Taking place at 23:00 UTC on Saturday ( Los Angeles:
Sat 16:00 , New York: Sat 19:00, London: Sun 00:00, Berlin: Sun 1:00, Sydney: Sun 9:00,
Auckland: 11:00 ) the vigil will continue for approximately 3 hours.
#Unity4J originated from an unplanned but timely response to injustice when Julian
Assange’s internet access and visitation rights were abruptly taken away and swiftly grew
into high-profile monthly online vigils endorsed by Chris Hedges, George Galloway, Ray
McGovern, Bill Binney and Daniel Ellsberg among many other noteworthy figures. It is with
that same sense of urgency and duty to take a public stand against oppression that we are
organising this Saturday to resist the escalated violations of Julian's basic rights.
“Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in
its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love."
-Julian Assange
Spread the word:
Livestream will be accessible at:
http://unity4j.com/stream
Event hashtag: #Unity4J
Official website: http://unity4j.com/
Official Twitter: @Unity4J
WikiLeaks Legal Defence Fund:
https://justice4assange.com/donate.html
WikiLeaks support website:
https://iamwikileaks.org
Courage Foundation:
https://couragefound.org/
Live-tweets and/or additional content: @Unity4J @Suzi3D
@ElizabethLeaVos @CassandraRules @KimDotcom @InternetPartyNZ
@greekemmy @couragefound @BellaMagnani @primal_species
@CrowdVBank
Other credible accounts for Julian Assange updates:
https://twitter.com/suzi3d/lists/Assange-updates
MEDIA INQUIRIES: Media inquiries and interview requests should be made
to Suzie Dawson, via DM on Twitter: @Suzi3D, or Elizabeth Vos on Twitter
via @Elizabethleavos, or by emailing info@unity4j.com
For more background on the recent escalation of grave threats to Julian
Assange’s life and liberty, we recommend reading the following articles:
Courage Foundation: Assange’s protection from US extradition “in jeopardy”
https://www.iamwikileaks.org/2018/05/25/assanges-protection-from-us-extradition-injeopardy/
Did Rep. Adam Schiff Just Admit the US Has a Secret Indictment of Julian Assange?
https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/05/26/did-rep-adam-schiff-just-admit-the-us-has-a-secretindictment-
of-julian-assange/
Conspiracy emerges to push Julian Assange into British and US hands
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/16/assa-m16.html
The UK’s Hidden Role in Assange’s Detention
https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2018/02/12/uks-hidden-role-Assange's-detention/
Treatment of Assange is unjust, says former Ecuador minister
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/16/julian-assange-treatment-irresponsibleecuador-
foreign-minister-guillaume-long
With Friday’s indictments of
Russian intelligence officers, Ray McGovern and Bill Binney have written an
open letter to President Trump making clear that the “evidence” behind the
indictments is as fraudulent as the intelligence alleging WMD in Iraq. It is
being published exclusively here ahead of the Trump-Putin summit on Monday.
BRIEFING FOR: The
President
FROM: Ray McGovern, former CIA briefer of The President’s Daily Brief,
and William Binney, former Technical Director at NSA
SUBJECT: Info Your Summit Briefers May Have Missed
We reproduce below one of our most recent articles on
“Russia-Gate,” which, in turn, draws from our Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity Memorandum
to you of July 24, 2017.
Thousands of years ago, there was
only God. God has control over the whole never-ending universe, which he
created, and his throne is above the clouds. God, with His infinite ability and
knowledge, created man, and Milky Way for human to conquer. It was implied that
God is a man. Of course God is a man! He is an old man who lives in the skies
and encompasses all the characters that man has. He, such as His creations,
falls in love, is cunning and crafty, gets revenge, likes and hates, deceives,
and even wrestles with his prophet. He is the one who has been, and will be,
and created man on his own image. So each one of us is like him without his
power, and we are nothing in comparison to him, but his sinful creations.
The
extreme level of inequality in the U.S. is battering the poor
Deniers like Nikki Haleyrefuse to admit that
mass poverty exists in their prosperous nation. That would reflect poorly on their
capitalist beliefs. But if the skeptics would look at the half of America they
don't care to see, the stark display of destitution might shock them. At least
until they invent an excuse to remove it all from their minds.
The U.S. poverty rate in 2016 was between 12.7 and 14.0 percent.
But the povertythreshold is
based on an outmoded formula from the
1960s. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS),
the threshold should be THREE TIMES HIGHER today. And it could be even higher
if the true nature of poverty is considered.
دانشمندان
موارد چندی از انقراض موجودات در طول کره زمین را ثبت کردهاند. البته انقراض بطور
روزمره اتفاق میافتد و هر روزه تعدادی از موجودات زنده نسلشان منقرض میشود. بحث در
اینجا انقراضهمگانی یا جمعی است که نسل گروه عظیمی از موجودات زنده برای همیشه از
صحنه گیتی زدوده میشود، که تا کنون همواره به دلیل عوامل طبیعی بوده است. از نظر تاریخی،
میتوان به چند واقعه اشاره کرد که دانشمندان و زیست شناسان و دیرینه شناسان کشف کردهاند،
که نسل بسیاری از موجودات را بطور جمعی منقرض کرده است.
Leftist Amlo has also refused to live in ornate presidential residence and pledged to cut his own salary
He has just been elected commander-in-chief of a nation mired in an intractable drug conflict that has claimed more than 200,000 lives in little more than a decade.
But on Tuesday, Mexico’s incoming president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, claimed he would waive the right to close protection in a bid to stay close to the people.
“I don’t want bodyguards, which means the citizens will take care of me and protect me,” López Obrador, or Amlo, as he is best known, told reporters as he called on Mexico’s incumbent president, Enrique Peña Nieto, to discuss the transition.
Amlo, a 64-year-old leftist who trounced opponents in Sunday’s vote, was repeating an undertaking made on several occasions during his historic campaign – one of several promises designed to bolster his image as a man of the people who will rule for Mexico’s 53 million poor.
هزاران سال پیش، جز خدای متعال هیچ چیز دیگری نبود. تخت سلطنت خداوند ابرهاست،
و مقر حکومت او این کهکشان بی انتهاست که او به وجود آورده است. خداوند مرد بزرگواری
است که نه تنها انسان را خلق کرده است، بلکه کره زمین را برای زندگی و آسایش او به
وجود آورده است. گفته شد که خدا مرد است، البته که خدا مرد است! خدا نه تنها مرد است،
بلکه پیرمردی است که در آسمانها زندگی میکند و کلیه صفات انسانی را داراست. او همانندِ
بندگانش عاشق میشود، خدعه میکند، انتقام میگیرد، دوست دارد، نفرت دارد، نیرنگ میزند،
و حتی با پیغمبرش دست و پنجه نرم میکند. این ربّ باریتعالی است که همیشه بوده و خواهد
بود، و انسان را در تصورش و مانند خود ساخته است. پس ما هر کدام مانند او هستیم، ولی
قدرت لایزال او را نداریم، و چنان که گفته شده، در مقابل او بندهای بیش نیستیم.
The Courage Foundation announces an urgent campaign to support Julian Assange and demand his freedom. Keep an eye on our liveblog for updates.
This month, it will be six years since Julian was forced to take refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London. He had been warned; the US Department of Justice was likely to file an application with Britain’s Home Office for his extradition to the United States. The allegations against Julian and WikiLeaks in the US were subsequently declared secret by a US District Court judge, but it has since been confirmed that a grand jury in Virginia has concocted a number of possible ‘charges’ against the WikiLeaks founder.
The most likely of these is ‘espionage,’ which harks back to a long-defunct First World War law designed to punish conscientious objectors.
Julian is not an American; neither has he ‘betrayed’ any state. His ‘crime’ has been free journalism and publishing, which are protected under the US Constitution, a document whose sanctity has apparently been jettisoned.
In a little noticed but potentially monumental development, the House of Representatives voted unanimously for an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 (H.R. 5515) that says no statute authorizes the use of military force against Iran.
The amendment, introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), states, “It is the sense of Congress that the use of the Armed Forces against Iran is not authorized by this Act or any other Act.”
A bipartisan majority of the House adopted the National Defense Authorization Act on May 24, with a vote of 351-66. The bill now moves to the Senate.
If the Senate version ultimately includes the Ellison amendment as well, Congress would send a clear message to Donald Trump that he has no statutory authority to militarily attack Iran.
This becomes particularly significant in light of Trump’s May 8 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. That withdrawal was followed by a long list of demands by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, which could set the stage for a US attack on Iran.
The past couple of weeks saw a number of truly tectonic events taking place simultaneously in the US, in Russia, in Israel, in Syria, in Iran and in the EU. I think that it would also be reasonable to say that most of those who opposed the AngloZionist Empire have felt feelings ranging from mild disappointment to total dismay. I sure did not hear many people rejoicing, but if somebody was, they were in the minority (uncharacteristically, Mikhail Khazin, for example). These reactions are normal, we all form expectations which can be, and often are, disappointed. Still, even when the news is clearly bad it is helpful to keep a number of things in mind.
اما
تاسفباره كه آقاى رضا پهلوى از يكسو ادعا ميكند كه طرفدار آزادى است, و از سوى
ديگر, در همين مصاحبه بدون هيچ سند سياسى و منطقى ميشود كه همه جوانان برخلاف
والدينشان با توجه به مطالعه و بدون تعصب اينك همگان طرفدار شاه فقيد و او هستند!
ولى در ادامه آب پاكى را خيلى آشكارا روى دست همه طرفداران فريب خورده اش ميريزد!
او در همين مصاحبه با آيت الله بى بى سى چنين ميگويد : در زمان حكومت پدرم رژيم
پهلوى آزادى بسيار زياد وجود داشت ، زن و مرد با هم كاملا برابر بودندووو!!!
Is there a difference between pleasure and happiness? That is the subject of an interview broadcasted recently on our local radio station. Dr. Robert Lustig is famous for his anti-sugar campaign. He has been on several radio programs, TV programs, and TED talks, speaking about his books. There is a link to his interview with KPFA radio host Brian Edwards Tickered, during the pledge drive of this Berkeley radio station. He speaks about "corporate consumption complex" and why everything becomes addictive.
